1.2 billion people out of the 7.2 billion in the world, shop online and spent €1,173.5 billion in 2013, again of which, one-third was spent in Europe.
In the previous year, Europe reported €363.1 billion in internet sales, higher than €333.5 billion in North America, but lower than €406.1 billion posted in Asia, says a report from Ecommerce Europe.
The US is the biggest B2C e-commerce market in the world clocking €315.4 billion in internet sales, with China and UK following with €247.3 billion and €107.2 billion.
“Together, these three represent 57 per cent of global total e-commerce trade, with Japan, Germany, France, Australia, Canada, Russia and South Korea making it to the top ten,” the report informs.
Three European countries account for 61 per cent of the continent's total online expenditure, which includes UK with €107.2 billion, Germany €63.4 billion and France €51.1 billion.
European e-commerce trade was up 16.3 per cent from its previous year in 2013 and out of 816 million Europeans, 565 have access to the internet, while 264 million have bought something online.
Out of the 161 million people who live in Western Europe which includes, UK, Ireland, France, Belgium and Netherlands, 142 million have access to the internet and 95 million have purchased online.
The Dutch stand fourth with €10.58 billion followed by Belgians with €3.82 billion in European ecommerce B2C sales. On average, Western European shoppers spent €1,864 on average in 2013.
In case of Central Europe B2C, Germany alone accounted for two-thirds of the regions B2C sales at €63.4 billion.
Both, Austria and Switzerland managed slightly more than €10 billion in 2013, twice as much as Poland at €5.2 billion, followed by The Czech Republic and Hungary with €2.16 billion and €0.8 billion, respectively.
The report reveals that Southern Europe is still way behind, but has grown 19 percent in 2013 over 2013, which brings it closer to the pack.
Spain and Italy bring in more than 50 per cent of the region's turnover of €14.4 billion and €11.3 billion out of €41 billion the region spent on online sales.
In Southern Europe, Turkey with €8.93 billion, Greece €3.2 billion and Portugal at €2.6 billion are next, while Croatia, Cyprus and Malta are nonexistent.
Only 65 per cent of the 212 million South European inhabitants have access to internet, but only 48 million actually shop online.
Northern Europe has a population of 32 million people, out of which 29 million have access to internet and, 19 million of those have bought online. It is the smallest of the five regions, but has the highest average spend at €1,926.
Sweden at €8.62 billion and Denmark with €8.37 billion are ahead of Norway which had internet sales of €7.6 billion and Finland with €6.5 billion, while it is negligible in Lithuania, Iceland, Latvia and Estonia.
